Angry eel turns on snorkeler after fight with octopus

There's a reason eels were the creepy sidekicks of evil sea witch Ursula in The Little Mermaid – because they're not to be messed with.

Swedish travellers Nicklas and Elin were snorkelling in Hanuama Bay, Hawaii, filming the sea life in the crystal clear waters.

But what they captured wasn't a happy Disney-esque scene of colourful fish and crustaceans living peacefully together with the occasional musical number, but a brutal demonstration of the violence of animal nature.

A moray eel and an octopus were engaged in tentacle to fin combat, and it was getting ugly.

The octopus struggles against becoming the eel's lunch, eventually escaping in a cloud of ink after sacrificing a tentacle for its survival.

This doesn't make the eel happy, because octopus is his favourite food.

He was expecting a huge octo-binge and all he ended up with was a lousy tentacle.

To make things worse, the appendage was stuck to his face blocking his eyes.

His failure to land a meal was blinding him, and he was absolutely ropable.

So he takes his anger out on the couple, hurtling towards them with the dead tentacle still stuck to its damn teeth.

US marine biologist George Burgesstold National Geographic it was likely the eel was growling at the camera man to back off from his food, or he may have lunged at the reflection in the camera but said eels weren't often aggressive to humans.

That being said, they have some serious teeth and shouldn't be messed with.

"Clearly the eel was not any too happy," Burgess says.

"Just like how you don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t get too close to a moray eel."